Requiem (33 page)

'The Yurrick
could find this information any time they wanted. Travel down to
the ruins in Rome, Greece and Egypt and-'

'The Colosseum
has all but been destroyed, the Parthenon as well and only one of
the Giza pyramids remains intact. A lot of the ancient ruins have
been severely damaged and NeoCorp guards what remains of humanity's
history very jealously. We need another avenue for research into
human history and since I claimed, in my research proposal, that I
would find one, I'm hoping that you can provide me with one.'

'Let's assume
for a minute that I have these books you're looking for. What would
you intend to do with them if I gave you access? How could I trust
that you didn't intend to take them outright?'

'If my
intention was to simply take them outright then, I assure you, I
would have used a very different method.'

The teacher
kept his unblinking eyes on Sear.

'How big a
collection would you actually have?' asked Sear. 'Hypothetically
speaking, of course.'

'Enough to keep
you busy for a few months,' said the teacher.

'In that regard
then, I would only need to see a handful of books at a time. Once
I've studied and recorded what I need from them then I can return
them to you in exchange for some more. If that suits you.'

Even with his
wide, penetrating eyes he was surprisingly hard to read for a
human. Maybe it was the beard obscuring the bottom half of his face
or maybe whatever had caused the scar on the left side of his face
had actually deadened some of the nerves. Sear thought this a
likely explanation rather than simply accepting that this man might
just be capable, practised at hiding things about himself. The man
looked from the children to Sear and back again, thinking something
over.

'I want you to
stay here,' he said. 'I'll be right back.'

'Where are you
going?'

He ignored the
question and kept walking through a set of double doors at the goal
end of the court and disappeared inside. He returned shortly with a
book. A few of the children started whispering to one another.

'What's that,
Mr. Delaware?' one of the children asked.

Mr. Delaware
approached Sear, ignoring the question and the children's stares
and placed the book in Sear's hand. It was thin with a hardbound
cover. The picture on the front was a surreal looking image of a
dozing, furry creature with horns. There were trees all around, a
lake with a red sail boat.

Sear turned it
over. The back cover had been torn off. He flicked through the
stained, fibrous pages. Most of the colours had faded but the large
print words and images were still easy enough to see. A boy dressed
in white pyjama overalls playing around with large, strange
monsters.

Sear closed the
book and looked at the teacher, Mr. Delaware.

'You didn't
just think I'd give you free access did you?' Mr. Delaware said.
'This isn't a library. I won't be giving these things away for
free.'

Sear looked
across the courtyard to the children who had all given up the
pretence of playing their game and were quietly staring at him,
squinting in the light from the midday sun.

'You want me to
read this to them?' Sear asked Mr. Delaware.

He nodded.

'When?'

Mr. Delaware
looked up at the sun as if discovering what the time might be. 'Now
is as good a time as any,' he said.

Before Sear
could ask another question, Mr. Delaware called out to the
children, 'Who wants to hear a story?'

The children
came racing from out of the sun into the shade of the awning. They
sat down on the concrete, folding their legs and raising their
eyes, which all seemed far too big for their heads.

'No, no, no,'
said Mr. Delaware. 'Not here. We'll go back into the cafeteria.
You'll get your story and then we'll have some lunch.'

The kids
stumbled to their feet and started running across the concrete pad
to an open door on the other side of the courtyard. One of the kids
was yelling 'MAX!' as loud as possible which started the other kids
in a frenzy. By the time they were cramming themselves through the
door they'd all taken up the chorus. 'MAX! MAX! MAX!'

'And into the
night of his very own room,' Sear looked up the dozen students
packed around his feet, 'where he found his supper waiting for
him.'

Some of the
children smiled up at him, some stared with their mouths slightly
open and a look of amazement. All of them were fidgeting in some
way or another, scratching at the wooden floorboards, picking at a
loose thread on a pants seam, scratching at a nondescript patch of
skin on the back of their hand.

Sear closed the
last leaf of the book and looked over at Delaware who'd seated
himself against the wall and watched the proceedings with mild
amusement.

'What do we
say, class?' Mr. Delaware finally said.

'Thank you,'
they all said in unison.

'Now, does
anyone have any questions for Sear?'

A girl on the
left side of the group raised her hand, Sear thought she looked
around six or seven although it was hard to guess ages with these
children. Their eyes seemed older than what their meagre bodies
might suggest. Their thinness showed beneath the stolen
hand-me-downs they all wore.

Sear pointed to
the little girl with the short, dark hair and pale blue eyes. The
front of her stained shirt read 'I heart NY'.

She spoke in a
delicate, squeaking voice that sounded like it might crack if she
spoke too fast. 'Why don't you have any eyes?' She asked with
genuine concern.

Sear looked at
Mr. Delaware whose smile had stretched even wider. He looked back
at the girl.

'I do have
eyes,' he said, 'you just can't see them.'

She looked at
him, unbelieving. Sear crouched down off his chair so that he was
almost level with the faces of the children. They all shuffled
closer. The girl reached out her hand to touch his face and he had
to gently stop her hand so she wouldn't poke him in the eye.

'They're black
like Miss Willow's eyes,' the short haired girl said.

'Miss Willow?'
Sear asked.

'That's her
stupid little doll,' came a sharp voice from the other side of the
group.

'You're a
stupid little girl doll,' the girl replied.

The other kids
cackled with laughter. The boy blushed and looked at Sear with a
sort of anger only reserved for someone who'd betrayed a pinky
promise or who just told Mr. Delaware that he'd wet the bed
again.

'What's that
weird thing your voice does?' came another question.

Sear turned to
where the voice had come from. A boy, even smaller than the dark
haired girl.

'What thing?'
Sear asked.

'
That
thing.'

'What
thing?'

'
That
thing!' the group of children cried.

Sear looked up
at Mr. Delaware.

'I think they
mean that it sounds like you have two voices,' he said.

'It's like an
echo in your throat,' the short haired girl said.

'Oh,' said
Sear. '
That
thing.' He looked back to the children, only a
foot away, whom he was still kneeling in front of. 'All Yurrick
speak like that,' he explained. 'There are certain words in my
language that require an echo in order to say the right way.'

'Alright, kids.
I'm sure Sear's had enough questions for now,' said Mr.
Delaware.

Sear sat back
on the chair, still looking down at the curious faces, freckled,
dimpled, expectant, hopeful, wide-eyed and... gaunt, unbelievably
gaunt. They had directed their attention to Mr. Delaware to their
right, their teacher and, Sear realised, their makeshift
father.

'Maybe if you
eat all your lunch and you behave yourselves you'll be allowed to
ask him some more questions,' said Mr. Delaware. The kids all sat
there, staring at Mr. Delaware.

He stared back
then leaned forward in his chair. 'Well?' He raised an eyebrow.
'Are you going to eat your lunch or not?'

'But we wanna
talk to Sear,' said one of the girls, pronouncing his name
'Sir'.

'After your
lunch,' said Mr. Delaware, getting to his feet and dusting off the
thighs of his jeans. 'And you may not know this but I've actually
bought Sear here today as back up.'

Sear looked at
Mr. Delaware curiously, with no idea what he might be referring
to.

Mr. Delaware
walked towards the children, some of who were giggling and starting
to fidget and squirm again. They apparently knew something that
Sear didn't. Delaware stood and looked down at them. His lips were
pressed together into a thin, pale line. There was a stern, almost
punitive look in his eyes and his thick arms were crossed over his
chest. He stared down at the children like this for some time until
they all fell silent and they all stopped fidgeting.

The corner of
Mr. Delaware's mouth twitched and he raised a single eyebrow and
the kids scrambled to their feet and clumsily ran out of reach of
Mr. Delaware's levering arms. They squealed and laughed as he
lunged for them. He managed to grab hold of the short haired girl
in one hand and a slightly larger freckle faced boy who might have
been about the same age. As he chased after the others he wrapped
both arms around his two hostages and started scratching and
wiggling his fingers under their arms. They were screaming and
laughing, kicking their legs in a vain attempt to free
themselves.

Sear remained
seated, simply watching the chaos of the children running through
the dinning room, ducking under tables, jumping out of the way of
the rampaging Mr. Delaware.

He'd been on
Earth for over half a year and never witnessed a scene such as
this. In his relatively brief stay in one of the Corporate Zones
he'd seen children playing but ever since he'd come to the
Insolvency, the children he'd seen had looked so tired and drained,
they couldn't summon the strength to even laugh let alone run.
Others had been placed outside the main doors of their respective
dives, stripped naked with a brand mark on their chests,
advertising for the owner of the bar and the services the child
could provide for any prospective client.

Eventually, Mr.
Delaware put his two hostages down and brought the kids together by
the food dispenser to have their lunch and walked back over to
where Sear was seated.

Sear was
watching the short haired girl waiting in line by the food
dispenser with a yellow bowl clasped in her hands. She kept
flicking her head to the side to keep her fringe out of her face.
Sear turned to Mr. Delaware.

'Mr.
Delawa-'

'Call me
Cooper.'

'Alright.
Cooper. You said that you wouldn't be willing to give me free
access to your books, which I fully understand, but what exactly is
it you want in exchange?'

Cooper raised
his hand to his chin and scratched at the thick, wiry hair. 'Maybe
we should speak somewhere a little more private.'

Sear rose from
his chair and followed Cooper back out onto the court. He caught a
glimpse of the short haired girl discretely peeking at him over her
shoulder.

They followed
the shade of the awning around the edge of the court and Cooper
directed Sear's eyes with his hand towards a few old classrooms.
Sear approached one of the still intact windows. He wiped a layer
of dust off and peered inside. The room was empty. The floor and
bottom half of the walls was covered in a heavily stained carpet
and large, randomly shaped patches had been cut out of it,
revealing wooden floorboards below.

'What happened
to the carpet?' Sear asked, not removing his face from the
window.

'It was like
that before we moved in. My bet would be junkies cut it up to get
to the glue. There's some burn marks in there from where they were
cooking it.'

Sear kept
peering into the empty room. He'd seen abandoned rooms, buildings,
entire cities in the other areas of the Insolvency but they always
had that same feeling. A sort of emptiness that seeped through the
walls, the floor, the ceiling, that bled from the air itself in
tiny condensed droplets as if untold memories were trying to relive
themselves through him. He didn't quite know what that feeling was,
only that it'd been getting worse the longer he stayed on Earth,
was becoming sharper and closer to the surface of things.

Sear pulled
himself away from the window and followed Cooper around the court.
They walked through the set of double doors on the goal end of the
court. It led into a corridor. Cooper led Sear to the office at the
end of the hall. 'Mr. Delware' was written in blue coloured felt
marker about halfway up the door. There was a small arrow in
between the L and W pointing up to the missing letter A. Sear
closed the door behind them. As soon as the latch clicked into
place, Cooper started talking. His voice was suddenly heavier as if
there were some unbearable weight pulling it down to the Earth.
Here, in his tiny office and away from his kids, Cooper's voice and
the thoughts that lay beyond that thin veneer was staggering, was
almost on its knees.

'I've lived in
Vale for most of my life,' he began, 'I know how things work and I
know how to get by but lately... getting by has become harder and
harder.' He leaned forward on his desk. 'Our food supplies are
dwindling and the supply chains into the city are breaking up. You
said you've been here for about eight months so you probably know
what NeoCorp has done in the other Insolvent Districts.'

Sear
nodded.

'And you know
of what NeoCorp has done to the maglev platform here at Vale?'

Sear nodded.
'They've stripped it.'

Cooper drew a
breath through his teeth. 'NeoCorp is coming and what I want to do
is find a vehicle. Something that I can use to get these kids out
of this place. But we also need supplies for something like that;
Fuel, credits, food, water.'